Monthly Archives: February 2015

Aside from envying badly, we are also at risk of admiring others in a way that prevents us from emulating them. Our respect can be so powerful that we are at risk of failing to see our heroes as people we might–in the best sense–steal from. A healthy relationship to one’s idols involves a sense […]

My first Nine Inch Nails album was The Fragile. This double album, seething with metallic angst, paired well with my high doses of Rage Against the Machine and Tool in high school. At the peak of my fandom, I even saw NIN with my dad at Lollapalooza (skipping Kanye on the other side of the […]

Sufjan Stevens mixes autobiography, religious fantasy, and regional history to create folk songs of grand proportions. I must have been sixteen that day in Cheapo Records in Minneapolis. I spotted the goofy album art in an ancient listening station: a man standing with a cigar, the Chicago skyline, Superman. The man invited me to “feel the Illinoise.” […]